6 Ways Church Techs Inadvertently Blow it with Leadership

Church technical leadership takes a high degree of practical skill, but no one trains you how to navigate the political, emotional, and social awareness issues. Most of us learn it by accidentally stepping on someone’s tripwire.

You aren’t invited to meetings. You feel like people are going around you.

You are left out of major decisions and are pretty sure the Executive Pastor is actively ducking you.

Church technical leadership takes a high degree of practical skill, but no one trains you how to navigate the political, emotional, and social awareness issues. Most of us learn it by accidentally stepping on someone’s tripwire. The problem is that stepping on tripwires blows things up. And it can be really hard to repair after it happens.

The worst part is that we usually don’t even know where that tripwire was in the first place—which can leave you guessing.

Here are six ways church techs blow it with leadership—usually without even realizing it:

1. Saying something dumb.

It’s a hard truth that how you receive information determines what you are told.

If leadership has set a new direction, and you’ve responded with criticism, anger, annoyance, or used the conversation to begin heavily campaigning for your own position, chances are that next time, they may not include you in the conversation at all.

It’s a hard truth that how you receive information determines what you are told.

It’s natural to want to defend and campaign when something is happening that affects you, but it’s also natural for leadership to avoid a conflict when they don’t have to engage it.

Receiving information well, means you get told. It also builds trust.

2. Trying to build your own social capital by knocking someone else’s work.

Ego happens to the best of us. After all, when we have technical knowledge, it’s easy to compare what someone did before us with our own work. Even easier to find fault with it when it shows off our own skill. Being critical of other’s decisions can backfire in unseen ways. For one, we often don’t know the parameters that led up to the decisions; and for another, we usually don’t have a full picture of the relationships that influenced the decisions.

Being generous and kind always plays better than being divisive and critical.

Being generous and kind always plays better than being divisive and critical. Roll with the decisions you inherit and decide how to move forward instead of taking shots at someone else’s choices in the past.

3. Thinking tactically instead of missionally.

When it’s your job to make Sunday morning happen, you can get buried by the details. After all, there are a lot of moving pieces to what you do. The challenge is that the people who serve in leadership, often don’t care about the details. Their job is mission.

If you respond to a conversation about mission, with responses that relate to the technical details, leadership can feel like you don’t get it. It can put you in a silo rather than positioning you as a leader for the ministry as a whole.

If you want to have a bigger impact on where the ministry is going, you have to learn to talk mission.

If you want to have a bigger impact on where the ministry is going, you have to learn to talk mission. Understanding and contributing to the big ministry goal makes you an asset.

4. Not knowing how to deal in the hidden currency.

Every organization has a currency—it’s the thing that people value. The problem is that it usually isn’t directly stated. How do you know what the currency is in your organization?

Every organization has a currency—it’s the thing that people value. The problem is that it usually isn’t directly stated.

Listen to the “hero stories” your organization tells. Those are the celebration stories that people tell over and over. For example, if your church prizes frugality, then leadership might tell stories which celebrate people who saved the church money. If your church values overseas missions, then the celebration stories might be about people who organized mission trips. If your church values going above and beyond, then the stories are probably about people who accomplish seemingly impossible things without regard for personal cost—the “diving catch.”

Once you identify what your church values the most in people, then you can invest in the currency and start to build some hero stories of your own.

5. Getting annoyed by last-minute requests.

We all know that there are few things more annoying than last minute requests. It’s the whole reason we all get a little joy out of the phrase: “Your lack of planning is not my emergency.”

... how we handle last-minute requests can either build solidarity with the person making them, or it can alienate the person making them.

The thing is, how we handle last-minute requests can either build solidarity with the person making them, or it can alienate the person making them.

One church technical director shared the story of serving with a man named Pat—who worked as a contractor for touring shows professionally. He shared that one Sunday, the pastor made a request which both frustrated and annoyed him because it left him feeling disrespected. But, Pat just jumped up and did it. When the tech director asked Pat why, he laughed, “I’m a roadie. I’m always working to get hired for the next job.”

We leak the way we feel about things—even when we don’t say a word. It isn’t enough just to not strike back, we actually have to change our framework of the way we interpret last-minute requests. Church work is by nature, personal. Reframing to the professional can keep us focused on helping the people who’ve hired us.

6. Forgetting leadership has more skin in the game than you do.

If you get fired tomorrow, you can easily get another job. After all, you have skills that are needed in the secular world. But your lead pastor? Well, a seminary degree isn’t as marketable outside of church circles.

Respecting that leadership has more skin in the game than we do can be a healthy framework in balancing the way we pitch ideas. After all, we can be passionate about doing things a certain way, but if leadership sees it as a risk, they may not be as willing to invest because failure can cost them more. When we keep in mind that leadership has more at stake than we do, it leaks off of us as respect.

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Cathy Hutchison has spent her career working with design professionals in spaces where people connect. She is a vice president with Idibri—a team focused on technology design, acoustics and theatre planning.